Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Tomorrow the IESE Case Study Presentation Caravan is coming to Amsterdam. Not only a good occasion to meet up with the local IESE crowd, but an opportunity to meet Tony Davila and Annemie again!Contemplating on applying to IESE? Sign-up here and have a chance to meet me in person!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

It has been quiet for a while, but recently I had heap of surgeries to attend. Anything from suicidal thoracic level fractures, juvenile ideopathic scoliosis cases to spondylolisthesis. Spondylolisthesis is a Latin term for slipped vertebral body. "Spondylo" means vertebrae and "listhesis" means slippage. One type of spondylolisthesis, degenerative spondylolisthesis, describes a condition of forward slippage of one vertebrae in the spine over another, usually occurring at age greater than 60. This condition in adults is most commonly due to degeneration, wear and tear, of the discs and ligaments in the spine.Is it bad? Symptons can be low back pain, buttock pain, leg pain, weakness in the lower extremities, numbness or burning in the leg, bowel or bladder incontinence. For you to decide!

Some images of what the hell i was just talking about:

A nice illustration where the L5 vertebrae has slipped over S1, or Sacrum

Sunday, February 18, 2007

After last weekend's heroics with Jubin (Thanks Sophie for leaving us at the Cantinero!) I decided to have a different type fun; how to live a life after the MBA, In other words, having fun while spending a chunck my recently received bonus. With three other colleagues we decided enjoy the delighted early spring weather, rent a helicopter for a day, and play golf around Holland. The day ended with a nice Japanese dinner at restaurant in Amsterdam. Not a bad way to have a bit of fun on the weekends!

Friday, February 16, 2007

Yup, Holger sent me an SMS this afternoon that he was in town for 45 minutes during a layover to some unknown place in Germany he calls home. Since I have nothing better to do on a Friday night, except from filling out my tax returns, I headed to Schiphol Airport to have a couple drinks! Despite the sacrasm; never pass over an opportunity to meet a IESE Teammate! A photo collage:

Oeps, empty glass of beer, time for another round!

Holger making friends with airport security over a nearly empty bottle of water.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

After a groceries run, I ran into this: a TV commercial for a laundry detergent. The crew was still putting up the clean, white shirts and sheets, I wonder how long that will last in the clean air above Amsterdam!

Friday, February 09, 2007

Never in these past 7 months have i felt this deceived while enjoying the Dutch congested roads in my little Golf. While driving to my first appointment at 7.30am, the radio was buzzing with important people announcing the precautions that would be taken during the day to cope with the thundering snow storm.

ProRail & NS (the train people) decided to cut the train schedules in half after 9.30am to prevent crazy delays and allow themselves plenty of time to repair frozen signs. The ANWB (the road people) put more menpower on the roads to help stranded cars. The KNMI (the weather people) announced severe weather warnings that would dwarf the recent storm. Folks were adviced not to travel and barricade themselves around a heater with a thermos filled with hot chocolate.

"Cool," I thought. I always like extreme weather, expecially when I have to drive and today was the perfect day with meetings scattered throughout Holland. Finally an opportunity to make effortless drifts around corners, or practise that handbreak donut. But no, nothing like that. Yes, it did snow, but with temperatures far above freezing the snow dissapeared quickly. I was even more dissapointed then the pre-schooler who was not able to built its first snowman with his buddies and was forced to eat the carrot for dinner.

Holland at 2.30pm; It looks like the amount of snow in the hills around Gstaad or St. Moritz!

Holland at 4.21pm; sun shine and happy beach people.

This is what i call snow; my Golf in 2002 after a 2 hour snow fall in Boston.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

I am not sure how the other cities in Europe are doing, but Amsterdam seems to be the IESE hub. Not only a large number of us live here (Martijn, Jubin, Rick, Diederik, Chris, Sophie, Fede & Pia), but every weekend at least some one is visiting; last weekend Tim & Revan, this weekend Margarita "Fastners" Salvans, and Heleanna. An impression:

Chris at the Ondeugd restaurant on Friday

Rick, Heleanna and Marga at Fede & Pia's place

About to get ready for the photo: (fltr) Marga, Pia, Chris, Martijn, Jubin, Heleanna, Floris, Rick and Fede.

Finally the right shot!

Chilling out in Fede & Pia's living room! Thanks again for the great dinner!

Impressions from a Saturday around Amsterdam while playing tour guide for Marga and her four friends. With a nearly 5 hour walk through down town Amsterdam, we were able to see everything from the Red Light District, Munt Toren, Begijnenhof, Flower Market, Waterloo Plein Market, Leidsche Plein, Kalverstraat, Rembrandt Plein, Jordaan and Anne Frank Huis.

Friday, February 02, 2007

One week a three day sales conference, the other a two day meeting of the Dutch Orthopedic Society. A Big stand with a bar and the Dutch "over 60" fieldhockey team with our hip implants challenging the surgeons to a shoot out. An excellent couple days in Rotterdam.